Recipe: Grapefruit Granita

Using Texas Rio Star Red Grapefruit

Or Make It With Any Other Citrus, from Blood Orange
To Meyer Lemon

Granita is light, low-calorie and crunchier than sorbet. You don’t use an ice cream maker; instead, the ice crystals form in a pan in the freezer and are broken up every few hours.

This recipe uses Texas Rio Star Grapefruit, grown in the Rio Grande Valley in southernmost Texas. They are more red in color than Ruby Red grapefruit, so have a more lovely color. If you can’t obtain them, you can substitute other red or pink grapefruit, but they may not have the same sweetness.

Makes 4 half-cup servings.

Ingredients

3 Texas Rio Star Grapefruit, juiced

1/2 cup sugar

Mint leaves for garnish

Texas Rio Star Grapefruit have a blush on the outer peel as well as a deep, rosy flesh. If you want, candy the peel as well.

Directions

Combine grapefruit juice and sugar and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

Let the mixture cool down and pour it into a flat pan with high sides. Place in freezer.

Once ice crystals start to form, take a fork and stir vigorously, breaking the crystals up, and return to the freezer. Do this every half hour for about four hours.

Once the granite is totally frozen, fluff it with a fork and give it another half hour in the freezer to solidify. Serve with a mint leaf garnish.